


Show Not Tell

by LateralFlexor



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Cutesy, Hotel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nonspecific timeline, Sharing a Bed, day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 07:31:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14075937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateralFlexor/pseuds/LateralFlexor
Summary: Starscream is his usual fussy, insecure self on a business trip with Megatron.





	Show Not Tell

                “I said I don’t want to talk about anything.”

                Megatron put down his pad at the realization that five times reading the same paragraph had contributed nothing to him.

                Starscream was in a mood.

                “You don’t speak that way unless something is well and truly bothering you, Starscream. Come now,” he felt emboldened by recalling their history and put his servo atop the seeker's twitching one. “I know you far too well.”

                “I don’t want to be here.”

                “You said you’d been here before and it-”

                Starscream winced in frustration, “Doesn’t mean I enjoy it all the time. Not now.”

                Megatron lightly scrunched his servo over the other's, trapping the lively thing in a cage. “You enjoy the big basins. If you’re so disturbed, why don’t you bathe?”

                The seeker was overcome with a sensation to cry, but he smothered it. Choked the life out of it. “I did earlier.”

                Megatron knew this. He was there, and Starscream had been pleasant then, quite the reversed reflection of whatever internal spat he was hosting. But the former leader had no will to fight him, to drive him to his wit’s end just to prove he knew something the other wouldn’t admit.

                He _knew,_ and there wasn’t much more to it. What he did know was that nothing productive came of prodding Starscream for the source; most likely he didn’t know himself anyways. The seeker’s testy nature hid many things, mainly his feelings, however irrationally rooted.

                “Is there anything to placate you?”

                Nothing.

                Megatron knew from experience he’d have better luck listing. “You want to read anything? Refuel? Fly?” He left the last option open-ended. Knowing Starscream, he’d prefer that of the three.

                “I don’t… want to fly.” Starscream shut off his light, leaving the hotel space a hundred shades darker. His frame twisted as he assumed a small spot on the rental berth, starchy covers scratching his metal appendages. Megatron was fond of the sweeping sound across his audials- it was the only thing he’d really heard the other make all night.

                The former Decepticon kept his sigh to himself. Starscream had been like this before, but the sudden swings of his mood were becoming a prominent feature of his personality the longer they’d been on this tour of conferences. Not like they hadn’t been before, but- well, this was different, to say so little. This stemmed from somewhere long untouched or new altogether. He wouldn’t expect the seeker to become irrationally violent, even with more intense provocation, but that didn’t make this like any encounter before in their millions of years of… whatever one would call that.

                The warframe was calmed by disengaging his thought-train. Wasn’t like he was required to verbalize any of it so coherently to any mech who asked.

                The broader mech was tempted to ask if the other if he wanted to… canoodle. His face tensed. That word wasn’t right. A sharp chunk of his engine permeated the room he was so repulsed for having thought it. Thank Pit it went unnoticed by his former lieutenant, otherwise he’d need to excuse himself.

                But, he always had the option of insinuation. Starscream made one final turn away to gain maximum distance without falling off the berth. His servo fled Megatron’s at the behest of himself to not make a bigger display. Not that an audience of one was daunting, but there was no sport in it either way. He only felt like mouthing off at every suggestion thrown to him, regardless if it was to soothe the intrinsic turmoil of his thoughts. It was childish, he felt, but that didn’t stop him from acting on it given the opportunity. It felt better to take it out on others.

                The tyrant let his servo kindly drag up one of the covers, resting it over the curvature of Starscream’s lower half and leaving it at the border of his hip. Again, there was little movement for a reaction, and Megatron took it a step further, flattening out the wrinkles on his frame as if he’d intended it all along. Innocently, though the seeker refused to label it such.

                Starscream _did_ sigh, but he didn’t give the credit to Megatron’s attentions. The old mech wanted to _placate_ him, was it? Get his servos on his frame in hopes of achieving a consoling overload?

                Fine. Maybe it would do something for him after all. But he had to let it.

                “Megatron.”

                “Yes, Starscream?” he asked, nestling closer behind his second, chin bumping into his pauldron armor.

                Oh. He certainly was pulling out all the stops. That low, heady voice, weaponized only to bring Starscream to his feet- or knees- when his ex-lord decided. He hated it.

                Hated that it worked.

                Hated that it made him feel important in a way he sometimes wished never diluted the power he truly wanted. At least it always kept him close to his master to try many a time to usurp- to coup. No matter if it was mingled with lustful, intimate, and affectionate action. Megatron never gave him the real impression of being put off by it either.

                The commander wanted to say more, but his silver tongue was mute. Megatron had taken his servo off his hip and worked up his frame, crawling over the dip of his waist before hitting the enlarged part of his chest. The fiendish mech hooked him by the chest and pulled him back, flush as he could be without letting the wings enter the equation. He did his best to keep them from flapping and forced them into tame excitement.

                 Megatron knew his frame well enough to maneuver his helm to get into the enticingly warm alcove of the seeker’s neck. Working his left servo underneath the impressively still form of the seeker, the warframe pulled him in by his interface panel, an action that had the potential to be lewder than it was. Once he felt the subtle curve of his commander’s aft hit him, he began to bite. Anywhere.

                Starscream couldn’t even writhe he was so restrained. He enjoyed the control both he and Megatron could exercise, but the sudden onset tension in his groin was going to drive him out of his self-loathing stupor.

                And no part of him understood if he wanted that or not.

                Less than deft digits wiggled into the gap of his thigh and pelvic span as Megatron’s teeth gnashed a cable. A piece of the slimmer mech considered the situation was escalating far too quickly to conceive anything he himself wanted. He wanted his master’s attention, but not so fiercely.

                He stretched his neck cables taut and he heard a ventilation of confusion. The seeker wrenched himself free, frame turning to meet Megatron’s. He even bothered to courteously sweep his wing _away_ from his lord’s faceplate. He hoped the motive was noticeable. One less thing to beg forgiveness for.

                His claws fanned out over Megatron’s chest, optics downcast as he awaited the older fool to catch up. Starscream stressed his field, previously tight and scathing, to reflect a more demure nature, insisting the other mech feel it out.

                Megatron met him full-on, field welcoming and as typically overwhelming as always. Starscream in normal circumstances would be embarrassed. In a hotel riddled with nobles and councilbots, he was personally thankful to the superconductors in the walls. Not wise to fling a field around in a meeting. Or in whatever those mechs were engaging in now on the opposite side of the room barriers. He thought the consideration would make him uneasy, dwindle his arousal, but he only found it heightened.

                No bot was bound to have a more charged encounter than him and Megatron; he deemed it fact.

                Megatron returned to burrowing in the warm neck, mouth active in his urge to sensualize his nibbling. Servos skilled at killing made irregular ellipses over Megatron’s chestplate, sensitive to the thrums of the warbuild’s spark.

                Starscream dug in when Megatron obscenely licked up the underside of his neck to his chin and then jaw. “E-eh.”

                Megatron chuckled, almost too earnestly to be elicited by lust or sadism.

                Starscream’s helm snapped up, voice telling to his sensitive state, “W-what?”

                Megatron purred, holding the harmoniously constructed frame closer, field calm and beating in small waves of delight. “Nothing you should concern yourself with.”

                Ten pinpricks surged into his abdominal plate.

                “Alright, alright.” He kissed along the set jaw of his underling, last one more teeth than anything lovely. Well, he supposed that wasn’t what the seeker was any longer. Had they been bonded, Starscream would’ve cut clean through his casing sensing a word of the sort. That was from a different world. “I revel in the noises you give me,” he surrendered readily.

                Grumbling, the seeker didn’t remove his hands, but he did lessen the sting, “Oh but you’d play them for your little Autobot buddies given the chance, wouldn’t you.”

                “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” Megatron had a sense that the attitude hadn’t resurfaced without incitement. “Is that why you’re so perturbed?”

                “Don’t be so thick.”

                Now he was intrigued. His helm lifted from the niche of the seeker’s cabling, cool room air hitting him as he abandoned the other’s armor. He thumbed the plush lower lip on his berthmate, noticing the drawn in wings out of the corner of his optics. “I’m no Autobot, and we have not surrendered our cause. We may make concessions, but Decepticon ideology will live until my dying intake, and then further yet. The truth of our past is permanent.”

                Like a true speech. Not one he’d helped write obviously, but Starscream was enamored with precision and concision alike. Megatron was forever involved in a relationship with language and pathos. Starscream too had once been in love with it, but his dedication after the discovered infatuation was with the passionate actions Megatron committed to, not the way he pitched them.

                Starscream kept his glossa from flicking the tip of his thumb, “I’m not a swooning member of the Kaon trenches, dearest Megatron. Your logic does just fine with me.”

                Megatron’s optics lidded in their focus on his partner. Starscream had him under his spell if that familiar action meant the same it had these past millions of years.

                “Logos it is then,” Megatron said. He lowered his frame, shrinking under the mess of covers the seeker made with all his twisting and kissed him.

                It was as tender as Starscream dictated it be, mouth nimble as his talons as they skittered over the once-revolutionary’s buzzing frame. The seeker hummed, optics shuttering as he felt Megatron’s servos slither to where they wanted to be. Gripping the flier’s aft, Megatron rolled himself onto the winged mech, happy to watch him wriggle with charge.

                The seeker ground upwards, his more intricate pelvis snagging on a few of the lord’s edges. Starscream’s vigor roused Megatron’s interest as he came closer, murmuring, “I see someone is feeling much better.”

                Starscream didn’t humor him, spark already accelerating with the promise of interface. His processor filtered out worry and fear in place of the incoming sensations. He didn’t feel like admitting to feeling soothed by his words; he’d never commit himself to such a damning lullaby. He wouldn’t even choose it over the sensation of nostalgia that blinded half his neural net, of the days when war was craved over boredom but the time between nurtured certain spirits aboard the _Nemesis,_ or whatever Primus-forsaken base they had backed themselves into.

                 Unable to knead the metal under so much weight, Megatron lowered himself, arms curling up under Starscream’s until he had him tucked close enough. The seeker’s backplates hardened protectively and Megatron rubbed what he could.

                “How would you prefer this treatment, Starscream?” Megatron asked playfully.

                He was met with borderline spitfire. “You ruin it when you have to ask,” Starscream responded. After the stretches of time between them, one would think an oaf like Megatron would have caught on. Apparently he was more a glutton for punishment.

                “I am aware, but you see-” the older mech licked a firm line up the jet’s neck, “I merely wish to know how boisterous you’d let us become.”

                Starscream was overcome with a want to push violently back at him, but his hands fisted, kneading just so at the clavicle area of his compatriot. The memories revived were embarrassing, mixing about as well as energon and oil. “You’ve rubbed over me enough, just put your spike in so I won’t have to be detailed tomorrow.”

                Ah, the reminder of an early morning. It made Megatron ill. Succumbing to the ins and outs of conventional bureaucracy? He wanted to flick him in the wing for dulling his hard-on.

                “ _Play_ with me tonight, and tomorrow you may suffer through the remainders of collaborative efforts and failed debates over expenditure.”

                Not bothering to conceal his grunt, Starscream retracted his panel’s opening sequence, lips twitching up at the sight of Megatron caught unawares. “Then I believe you need to work me over more if that is your wish.”

                “You magnaminx,” Megatron frowned, helm lowering. Starscream’s optics locked onto him mercilessly. Megatron flattened his derma to the seeker’s panel, giving one or three sloppy kisses Starscream couldn’t tell.

                “I did not ask for your drool, _Master,_ or I would have taken it from you already.” Despite his words, his thigh twitched and he gasped when he felt more denta. “I-I’d have had you on your knees across the room, forced to watch me service myself. I’d have the fun over before you could even bring yourself to come over.”

                Helmet snapping up, Megatron’s expression was fierce, “And I did not ask for attitude, yet here we both are.” The heavyweight aerial rubbed his helm dominantly into the side of Starscream’s helm. “And you wouldn’t think to be so selfish during this amiable performance now would you?”

                Megatron retreated to see the handiwork of his artful barb, but his lover wasn’t as reciprocatively joyous as he remembered. The gray-white of Starscream’s denta disappeared behind a concerned, put-out shape of his mouth. “Is that what this is then,” Starscream asked, voice low with timid sorrow, “A performance?”

                Red eyes steady, Megatron held the flier’s face between his polish-thirsty digits. He watched the other’s optics dart with restraint, lest they give off a weakness of character. Starscream had always been concerned of finding his place, and now that he had one Megatron supposed that was the uncomfortable part of his lifespan now.

                Darkly contented, Megatron stroked Starscream’s lip again, “No,” he said. “It is not.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not specific to any continuity or timeline.


End file.
